She Says… The Hollow Leg

We’re in the middle of one of those crazy voracious toddler eating phases. The last few days, it feels like Owen is eating us out of house and home. What am I going to do when he’s a teenager? Or with TWO teenage boys in the house?! Sigh.

Each breakfast lasted nearly an hour this past weekend, because Owen just kept saying, “I’m still hungry!”. On Sunday he started with his usual:

Milk (plus an extra half cup upon his request)

Protein (a hard-boiled egg)

Carb/starch (a pancake with ground flax)

Fruit (a clementine)

Still hungry.

Cheese stick

Fruit/veggie/almond milk smoothie that Benjamin and I were having

Dry cereal

Still hungry.

Handful of pistachios

And then I cut him off. I thought maybe he was just front-loading his food, like I often do (I eat a huge breakfast, smaller lunch, and eventually need a smaller dinner… so I don’t sweat it or starve myself if I’m super hungry in the morning, since it usually evens out). But then at lunch the same thing happened (despite doing my best to fill his belly with black beans, a hummus wrap, pear slices and green and red peppers). And I’m pretty sure he had his usual two snacks a day, also.

By dinner I thought he would have had enough, but no.

Salmon

Rice made with coconut milk

Broccoli

Milk

Then he was ready for his “treat”, since he gobbled his dinner.

Easter marshmallow

Still hungry.

Applesauce

Dry cereal

Still hungry.

Almonds

The kid is a vacuum. Thankfully he pretty much says “Ummmm… yes!” to whatever I offer when he grins and says, “I’m still hungry”, so at least he’s eating whatever I put in front of him.

6 responses to “She Says… The Hollow Leg”

I have visions of what my grocery shopping will be like when my boys are teenagers. And what if I’m having a THIRD boy (which I will find out next week)??? I was in the grocery store last week and the woman in line in front of me was checking out with three loaves of bread, six boxes of cereal, three jugs of milk, etc. I just knew – she had teenage boys at home. Of course, as much as this freaks me out, the thought that my Miles might actually grow into one of those teenage boys who eats everything – it brings tears to my eyes! I’ll buy him the whole store!!!

Yes! We took advantage of restaurant week a few weeks ago and went to Ruth Chris. I knew Kellen would eat too much to share so I got him his own filet and wow. He tanked it. And entire 6oz filet plus his potatoes plus several bites of my mother’s filet and a ton of my spinach. Child, you are not even 2 yet! I should have known better, as a kid who was ordering full prime rib dinners at 6 but I thought I had more time!

Toddlers have an innate ability to self-regulate. If he’s hungry, I would give him more food. Tomorrow he might eat less. I guess if he was asking for cookies and chips it would be a different story — but he’s eating good stuff. Plus, he’s a growing boy!

Maya eats like a bird most of the time … but there are days when she asks for more milk/fruit/etc and we do give it to her because of that exact reason: I see what she eats at school each day and it’s not like she is being over-fed. It’s tough sometimes to give her more … I have a history of disordered eating issues (fine now, and have been for four years). But I never want to make her feel shameful about food or have an unhealthy relationship with it. I love how in-tune she is with her body and her hunger queues. We can all learn a lot from watching toddlers eat. I wrote a post at Babble about this a couple months ago. http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2012/05/18/want-to-learn-how-to-eat-intuitively-spend-a-day-with-a-toddler/

I felt this way with our daughter and I sorta took advice from all the facets and sorta made a plan. We let her make some choices to her room we gave her some small chores like carry fresh laundered pillows stuffed animals to her room and the day the bed went up we actually took crib apart and put in garage so she visually saw we were done w it that’s why she got a bed after we got her settled we jumped in quickly sorta and started babies room and we keep Interjecting we got u a bed mom dad a bed cats a bed now what to do w BAbies we had to make alot of hints but as we sent her to the room w fresh Dec animals etc she fi ally said there was a bed in the garage. Lo g story longer im shocked making her Thi k it was her idea made her bed transfer go smoother and when she saw ba h in her handle Dow. Crib she actually slept better.